Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Attractive, but limited in use July 18, 2008
While this dictionary includes attractive images that encourage browsing, the characters are somewhat small and the organization of the book by theme (rather than in alphabetical or Pinyin order) makes quick look-up difficult. Also, I have a hard time believing that simply listing all the body parts (for example) is an effective way to learn the Chinese words. Discussion of characters/etymology and Chinese-specific culture is limited, but this might be a fun book to look at with a non-English-speaking Chinese friend in order to facilitate communication.
Nathan Dummitt
author of Chinese Through Tone & Color
 High-quality illustrations with over 6,000 words July 16, 2008
This compact, square-shaped visual dictionary is the best of its kind as far as I've seen. Being a visual dictionary, the majority of the words are nouns, but under many categories there are additional related adjectives and verbs, along with fixed phrases. Including nearly 6,000 nouns, the book covers the majority of objects that students would seek to know, while at the same time it doesn't overdo it with superfluous, obscure vocabulary. Ideal for English-speaking students of Mandarin or Chinese-speaking students of English as a reference.
3.5 stars nice little reference book but could be improved upon July 4, 2008
This is a nice little tome for browsing and referencing, though is not a replacement for a standard dictionary. I would agree with the others about the strong Western bias -- most people studying Chinese are interested in some aspects of culture as well, and thus would be interested in relevant words. It takes a while to figure out where some words are categorised, though there is an index in back. It also does not show traditional characters, or alternative pronounciations or uses of words as may occur in Hong Kong or Taiwan, and again a good standard Chinese-English dictionary would be a better option since most will show you the variants. Some uses and prounciations in this text are simply wrong to native Mandarin speakers from HK or Taiwan.
Outstanding visual dictionary June 14, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I agree with F. J. Powell's critique that this book has a serious Western bias and lacks many important Chinese words. But this 320-page book is so full of useful information and presents it in such an attractive visual format (which should motivate study and facilitate knowledge retention) at such a reasonable price that it warrants five stars.
Chinese textbooks tend to stress Chinese customs, holidays, minority groups, historical figures and events, etc. So it's not so bad that this book goes in the opposite direction. Only a thick, unabridged dictionary will have every word in it, and reading such a tome cover-to-cover is hardly the most effective method for learning a language.
Another negative about this visual dictionary is that, although it does present verbs, it's mostly about nouns and some adjectives. And there are virtually no sentences. So it won't teach you Chinese. But it will definitely help enrich your vocabulary if you find yourself (as I often do) starting a sentence only to stumble on a noun, point at an object and say "neige dongxi." I've tried to explain baseball and (American) football to my father-in-law, and it's basically impossible. But this book actually has several pages on these subjects that I haven't found in any other books. It has 40+ visual pages just on food.
I wish the Chinese character font were larger, but the book is small enough to carry around, which is another plus.
If you want to learn nouns (esp. if you live in the West with Mandarin-speaking in-laws, as I do), get this beautiful, well-organized, informative book.
It should allow us to search into! May 16, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I just bought from Amazon this fantastic visual dictionary - despite of not looking into it - but I can say I was not disappointed: it is a DK ! Intelligent and pretty.( why DK did not release the "search inside"?)With incredible photos fine printed. An advice: It is in simplified characters.
For my studies, that are in traditional characters it is not a real problem, for the pronunciation ( pinyin ) is the same, so, for each issue I look, I write side-by-side the simplified form, the traditional character. It is a way of memorize both! What one should know is that, besides the numerous chapters, like, people, appearence, health, home, services, shopping, food, eating out, study, work, transport, sports, leisure, environment, reference and all, there are two complete indexes in chinese and in english , at the end of the book.Both in alphabetical order. Easy to search. 360 pages of brilliant paper. Nice layout.
More: the size is perfect to carry in a purse, schoolbag, hands: not small but not too big. Perfect. More: for each new theme, there are examples in using sentences, etc. Who wants more?..................
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